![]() ![]() ![]() But this one man is also a dedicated denizen of the digital universe, and some of the best parts of the book are Parker’s explanations of how computers work. Instead, he provides one man’s take on the history of math, emphasizing the puzzles that led to profound discoveries or to tantalizing conjectures that remain neither proved nor disproved. Also, by this point, it’s clear that the author does not aspire to create a math-for-dummies handbook. Some readers will lose their way-the visualizations alone are tough. This branch of math is topology, but in arriving there, Parker makes forays into subfields like tiling (think bathroom floors), packing (how to ship oranges efficiently) and knot theory. Parker explains how a square becomes a cube in 3-D and a hypercube (a tesseract) in four dimensions or a doughnut (a torus) becomes an object called a Klein bottle. But his approach has the acceleration of a Ferrari, so readers are quickly racing into higher dimensional space. Parker begins with the easier elements like number systems, primes and the polygons of Euclidean geometry. Guardian and Telegraph writer and comedian Parker aims “to show people all the fun bits of mathematics.”įor starters, take out paper and pencil, compass, straight edge, maybe a balloon or a bag of oranges, because the author will challenge you to tackle puzzles, whether it’s cutting a pizza in equal slices so some pieces never touch the center or passing a quarter through a nickel-size hole. ![]()
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